Dead Tree Alert: Lip Service for Karaoke

Apparently I wrote a column while I was on vacation. It's in the current Time magazine and online right here. Who knew? That work-while-you-sleep chip they implanted in my brain must have kicked in!

Actually, it's a column on the networks' summer-karaoke shows, bumped for space reasons a while back, which my editors apparently decided to run while it was still in season (like wearing white one last time before Labor Day). There's something corny and retro about karaoke, and yet something totally of-the-moment too:

If you are over 35 or 40, you were probably raised to guard your privacy and hide your slipups. But reality TV, Web 2.0 and social networking have accustomed people to public performance. Karaoke shows, which reward correct lyrics, not proper pitch, fit the new American belief that lack of talent is no reason not to command an audience. The Singing Bee's slogan--"You don't have to sing it well, you just have to sing it right!"--would make a great national motto.

Karaoke--and the performance culture it stands for--is not just about ego and entertainment. It's a way of playacting the skills of a networked world, where shyness is a handicap. In the YouTube era, overcoming shyness is the equivalent of killing a mammoth in the Ice Age: an essential survival skill and milestone achievement to be celebrated in picture and song.

America, of course, isn't the first culture to use karaoke this way. The column was cut down by about a third to fit a 2-column space, but my original version included a little background on karaoke's origins in Japan:

Karaoke—meaning “empty orchestra”—originated in Japan, which places a cultural premium on avoiding embarrassment. That’s no coincidence; it started among businessmen who used singing (and alcohol) as a lubricant for striking deals. “I think karaoke has helped to transform the Japanese people,” its inventor, Daisuke Inoue, told Time in 1999. “Give a guy a microphone, and the same man who has trouble getting out a wedding speech never wants to stop!”

You can read more of that Inoue interview in the original Pico Iyer profile here. It has a good beat, and it's easy to sing along to.